My Secret Wife. Cathy Thacker Gillen

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СКАЧАТЬ he could just forget the clinical approach and make love to her, and impregnate her with his seed that way, Gabe shrugged off her concerns. He knew they could work out whatever problems came up. The important thing was that Maggie not go off half-cocked and have some stranger’s baby, and then spend the rest of her life—and her baby’s, too—regretting it. “They don’t even have to know the details,” Gabe argued resolutely. “We’ll tell them that you’re pregnant later, after we’ve already been secretly married for a few months. That way,” he reasoned, “we’ll likely get a lot less grief, since people are less inclined to weigh in about a fait accompli.”

      “All right,” Maggie said tremulously. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed in deeply and then released an enormous sigh of relief. “I agree.” She shot him a stern, warning glance. “But with my ovulation window ready to hit by the end of the week, we don’t have much time.”

      Chapter Three

      “You may kiss the bride,” the Sunset Beach justice of the peace said, as soon as Gabe and Maggie had finished their vows.

      Gabe turned to Maggie. She was wearing a simple white cotton dress that left her shoulders bare and ended just above her knees, and made her look both surprisingly fragile and very beautiful. At the insistence of the couple presiding over their wedding vows, she had tucked a white rose into her wavy honey-blond hair in lieu of a veil or hat. The overall affect was simple and understated—she made a very lovely bride.

      They had decided to get married out on the beach, next to the ocean, rather than inside, in the intimate little chapel, but Gabe wasn’t sure this was much better. He still felt as if they were married as he leaned forward, looked into her light-green eyes, and delivered a light, gentle kiss to her cheek, even though he knew that in spirit they definitely were not. That this was just a formality done for propriety and their child’s sake.

      Maggie smiled, stepped back and, looking as eager to end the event as he, thanked the young couple for fitting them in on such short notice. Still clutching the bouquet of silk flowers that had come with the Basic Wedding Package she headed with Gabe to the car.

      “Want to have dinner on the way home?” Gabe asked, as they trudged through the sandy dunes and blowing sea grass that separated the ocean from the wedding chapel parking lot.

      Maggie’s forehead creased as she glanced at her watch. “Maybe we just could hit a drive-through on the way and grab some sandwiches,” she suggested instead, “since we have a two-hour drive ahead of us back to Charleston.”

      “Okay,” Gabe did his best to curtail his disappointment as he held her door and watched her settle gracefully into the passenger seat of his sports car.

      He supposed that was what he got for having agreed to get married in North Carolina, instead of the state in which they lived. But given the fact that South Carolina had a twenty-four-hour waiting period—and North Carolina had none—and they didn’t want anyone besides themselves to know about their hasty wedding just yet, there had really been no alternative. To get married before her monthly ovulation window opened, and/or one of them changed their mind, they’d had to drive north to the quaint little coastal community, apply for a wedding license before the county records office closed for the day and then find a chapel to fit them in before they drove back.

      Now, the deed done, the plain gold wedding bands on their fingers, they were officially man and wife.

      MARRIED, Maggie thought, as she took off the plain gold band and dropped it into the zipper compartment in her purse. She was married to Gabe Deveraux.

      In name only, of course.

      But still, she thought as she rubbed the place on her finger where the wedding band had been, she was no longer the free woman she had been just a few hours ago.

      Nor was she really his wife.

      They were just…friends.

      Casual friends, she reminded herself fiercely, who were going to have a baby together as soon as they could get her pregnant the newfangled way. All that would involve would be plastic cups and syringes and hospital gowns and feet in stirrups.

      There would be no champagne, no roses, no romantic dinners for two. So why, she wondered, as Gabe turned his car into a fast-food restaurant with a drive-through lane, were her palms all sweaty and her heart in an uproar? It wasn’t as if the vows they had just said meant anything. Noticing she had taken her ring off, Gabe removed his wedding band, too, and shoved it in the pocket of his starched white dress shirt.

      Abruptly looking as if he felt as uncomfortable and ill at ease as she did sitting side by side in his small sports car, Gabe held the wheel with one hand and loosened his navy and khaki tie and undid the top button on his shirt with his other. He braked as they reached the microphone, then turned to her, a bit impatiently. “What would you like?”

      Maggie scanned the menu and tried not to think how awkward this all was. Neither of them had been nearly this tense on the way to get married. “I’ll have a chicken sandwich, fries and a lemonade,” she said quietly.

      Gabe ordered that for her, and a burger meal for himself.

      As he drove around to the first window, Maggie reached for her purse.

      Gabe held up a hand before she could get out her wallet. “I’ve got it,” he stated firmly as he pulled cash out of the pocket of his khaki trousers. Two minutes later he turned back onto Route 17. “Open mine for me, would you, please?” he said.

      Grateful for something to do besides look at Gabe and notice how handsome he was, Maggie flipped open the box, then looked at the thickness of the sandwich inside. Two patties, two slices of cheese, lettuce, pickles, onions and catsup.

      Gabe caught her frown and glanced down. “Probably not the smartest thing to be eating while I’m driving, is it?” he observed with a beleaguered sigh.

      Maggie shrugged, knowing it didn’t have to be a problem if they didn’t want it to be. “We could stop,” she suggested.

      “No.” Gabe’s jaw was set. “I can do it. Just hand it to me, would you?”

      Maggie knew a man with his mind made up when she saw one. Her father had often had that very look on his face when he’d made a bad decision and decided to soldier through and stick to it nevertheless. “Okay,” she said, just as agreeably. She picked the sandwich out of its little brown box.

      “Just squish it together some so it’s a little flatter,” Gabe directed.

      Maggie kept her skepticism to herself and did as directed. “I don’t know about this,” she hedged. The sandwich looked and smelled delicious, but the eating of it threatened to be awfully messy.

      “It’ll be fine,” Gabe said, taking the sandwich.

      One bite later, the first glob of catsup hit his thigh.

      “Don’t worry about it,” Gabe said stubbornly, as he continued to eat and drive.

      “Okay,” Maggie said, wondering what it was about men in general that made them have to do things their way, even if it was clearly the wrong way. “It’s your clothing. But at least let me put a napkin or two underneath.”

      She opened one up all the way and, being СКАЧАТЬ